GUNS AND AMMUNITION. 



389 



laws are, however, strictly obeyed, and I 

 never hear of song birds being killed. Fer- 

 reting and Sunday shooting are common 

 about the neighboring factory towns and it 

 seems to be nobody's business to stop them. 

 I know of no better fun than long range 

 shooting at woodchucks. At distances 

 greater than 200 yards it takes a close shot 

 to startle one; and by getting on a bluff 

 overlooking a mile of meadow land, after 

 the hay has been taken off, one may put in 

 a pleasant afternoon. Sometimes 5 or 6 

 chucks will be in sight at a time, at distances 

 from 200 to 600 yards, and as you never 

 know just how far off they are, it keeps 

 you guessing. A dry time is best, as the 

 dust will fly when the bullet strikes. You 

 can use as large a ball as you please. I 

 know one man who uses a Sharp's .45-100- 

 500, fitted with a glass. It will put 5 out of 

 8 shots in a 6 inch circle at 80 rods. 



A NEW SMOKELESS POWDEP 



J. G. M. 



To bestow praise through the columns 

 of a magazine, or otherwise, on gun or 

 powder, is to lay one's self open to a charge 

 of advertising the goods. If one condemns 

 an article, in unmeasured terms, his state- 

 ments stand unquestioned. If he speaks of 

 'its good points there is an immediate 

 search for a motive which could have 

 prompted the utterance. 



It is this weakness on the part of the pub- 

 lic that has deprived it of much valuable 

 information. Men in a position to write 

 intelligently on various subjects have 

 thought of the criticism thev would call 

 down on themselves by so doing, and have 

 laid down their pens. For this reason I 

 have hesitated to write on a subject which 

 has been and still is of great interest to me 

 — that of smokeless rifle powder. Inci- 

 dentally it is to call the attention of rifle- 

 men to a smokeless powder which I have 

 tried under various conditions and found 

 satisfactory. 



Previous to the introduction of the high 

 power rifles, the .30-40, the .30-30 and others 

 of similar pattern, few sportsmen had any 

 idea of the effect these new guns with their 

 smokeless powder cartridges would have 

 on rifle shooting; but their education has 

 been rapid. The loud report of the black 

 powder and the cloud of smoke which 

 hung over the muzzle of the piece, hiding 

 the game or target from sight, were never 

 so obnoxious as after an outing with one 

 of the new style rifles. Then there was the 

 fouling and corroding: of the rifle barrel 

 that rendered the frequent use of the clean- 

 ing rod a necessity, and which further was 

 so often to blame for irregular and unsat- 

 isfactory shooting. 



Before the smokeless rifle came, these 

 faults of gun and ammunition were ac- 

 cepted as irremediable and all efforts of 



manufacturer and consumer were directed 

 only toward securing a modification of the 

 evil. Afterward these defects stood forth 

 in glaring prominence, and dissatisfaction 

 with the old guns and powders became gen- 

 eral. Those who were financially able 

 promptly armed themselves with new rifles 

 and smokeless cartridges. Those who were 

 not able to indulge in such luxury, looked 

 on their more fortunate brothers with envy, 

 and made the best of it. 



However, the seeds that had been sown . 

 began to sprout and a demand arose for a 

 smokeless powder that could be used in 

 black powder rifles. Some went a step 

 farther and tried to use the high power .30 

 caliber smokeless in their old rifles, but the 

 result was not satisfactory. Black powder 

 rifles were not built to impart a velocity of 

 2,000 feet a second to metal cased bullets, 

 and many were ruined in the careless ex- 

 periments that followed. 



Experience in the field and on the range 

 afterward demonstrated to the men inter- 

 ested in rifle shooting, that extremely high 

 velocity and low trajectory were not abso- 

 lutely essential for ordinary work and they 

 decided that even if they should be com- 

 pelled to forego the pleasure of firing tiny, 

 armor-piercing projectiles from their old 

 guns they could at least hope to secure a 

 powder of which noise and smoke were not 

 component parts. A demand was there- 

 fore made on the powder manufacturers 

 throughout the country for a smokeless 

 powder that could be satisfactorily used in 

 the rifles built and bored for black powder. 



Some makers rushed through batches of 

 powder which they asserted would be just 

 what was wanted. They were mistaken, 

 however, for the results proved that the 

 new powders were likely to either ignite so 

 imperfectly that the bullet dropped a few 

 feet from the muzzle, or on the other hand 

 to explode with a combustion that was en- 

 tirely too sudden for the future usefulness 

 of the gun. There were other powders 

 which seemed excellent at the time of load- 

 ing but which in the course of a few weeks 

 would deteriorate to such an extent as to 

 place the rifle on a par with a popgun, so- 

 far as killing power and accuracy were con- 

 cerned. Then the riflemen sighed and re- 

 turned to the use of black powder. 



I went through all this and had just about 

 come to the conclusion that all smokeless 

 rifle powder was a delusion and a snare 

 when I secured a sample of a new kind 

 which had just been placed on the market. 

 It was made by the Laflin & Rand Powder 

 Company and was designated by the maker 

 as " Sporting Rifle Smokeless." A glance 

 at the powder showed a point or 2 of merit 

 belonging to no other powder. It was not 

 granulated and screened, but was cut in 

 small sections and all of one size. Further- 

 more it was harder than black powder. 

 Those who have used powder of big grain 



